Synthetic Three-Dimensional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

1. A method for generating a three-dimensional image from a set of multiple two-dimensional images acquired with a medical imaging system, the steps of the method comprising: (a) providing to a computer system, a multislice data set comprising a plurality of two-dimensional images acquired with a medical imaging system, wherein the two-dimensional images were acquired along a slice orientation direction and each have a slice thickness and are spaced apart by a slice spacing; (b) generating an intermediate data set with the computer system by Fourier transforming the multislice data set along the slice orientation direction into k-space; (c) converting the intermediate data set into Fourier representation data with the computer system, based in part on a slice profile associated with slices depicted in the multislice data set; and (d) generating a three-dimensional image with the computer system by inverse Fourier transforming the Fourier representation data along at least the slice orientation direction, wherein the spatial resolution of the three-dimensional image along the slice orientation direction is finer than the slice thickness.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein step (c) includes converting the intermediate data into the Fourier representation data by dividing the intermediate data by a Fourier transform of the slice profile.

3. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein at least one of the slice thickness or slice spacing is selected to minimize superposition of k-space replicates in the Fourier representation data.

4. The method as recited in claim 3 , wherein the slice thickness and the slice spacing are selected such that each of the plurality of two-dimensional images partially overlaps with adjacent ones of the plurality of two-dimensional images.

5. The method as recited in claim 3 , wherein the slice spacing is selected as a positive valued multiple of the spatial resolution of the three-dimensional image along the slice orientation direction.

6. The method as recited in claim 5 , wherein the positive valued multiple is a positive integer multiple.

7. The method as recited in claim 6 , wherein the slice spacing is selected from a range of 1·Δr to 4·Δr, wherein Δr is the spatial resolution of the three-dimensional image along the slice orientation direction.

8. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the slice profile is one of a rect function or a Gaussian function.

9. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein: the multislice data set comprises a first plurality of two-dimensional images acquired with the medical imaging system along a first slice orientation direction and each having a first slice thickness and being spaced apart by a first slice spacing, and a second plurality of two-dimensional images acquired with the medical imaging system along a second slice orientation direction that is different from the first slice orientation direction and each having a second slice thickness and being spaced apart by a second slice spacing; step (b) includes generating the intermediate data set by Fourier transforming the first plurality of two-dimensional images along the first slice orientation direction into k-space and the second plurality of two-dimensional images along the second slice orientation direction into k-space; and wherein the three-dimensional image has a first spatial resolution along the first slice orientation direction that is finer than the first slice thickness and a second spatial resolution along the second slice orientation direction that is finer than the second slice thickness.

10. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein the first slice thickness and the second slice thickness are a same slice thickness.

11. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein the first slice spacing and the second slice spacing are a same slice spacing.

12. The method as recited in claim 9 , wherein the first plurality of two-dimensional images has a first slice profile and the second plurality of two-dimensional images has a second slice profile, and wherein step (c) includes converting the intermediate data based in part on both the first slice profile and the second slice profile.

13. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein step (c) includes converting the intermediate data to the Fourier representation data by multiplying the intermediate data point-by-point with a Fourier transform of a different slice profile than the slice profile associated with the multislice data set.

14. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the multislice data set is acquired using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system.

15. The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the multislice data set is acquired using at least one of an in-plane acceleration technique or a simultaneous multislice acquisition technique.

16. The method as recited in claim 14 , wherein the multislice data set is acquired using an acquisition technique wherein k-space data acquired within a specified distance from an origin of k-space are acquired with a first sampling density along the slice orientation direction and k-space data acquired beyond the specified distance from the origin of k-space are acquired with a second sampling density along the slice orientation direction that is different from the first sampling density.

17. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the multislice data set is acquired with an x-ray computed tomography (CT) system.

18. The method as recited in claim 1 , wherein the multislice data set is acquired with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system using a pulse sequence in which: slices corresponding to the plurality of two-dimensional images are assigned into a plurality of passes such that the excitation of any of the slices assigned to a given pass does not significantly affect magnetization of any other slice assigned to the given pass; repetitions for sampling each slice are subdivided into a discrete number of segments, wherein the discrete number of segments ranges from one to a total number of the repetitions; segments for each of the plurality of passes are assigned across an acquisition time; and data are acquired for all slices and for all of the plurality of passes is performed using the assignment of segments across the acquisition time.

19. The method as recited in claim 18 , wherein the segments for each of the plurality of passes are assigned across the acquisition time such that gaps of time exist between each consecutive segment in each pass.

20. The method as recited in claim 19 , wherein segments from different passes are interleaved in the gaps of time.

21. The method as recited in claim 18 , wherein one or more dummy repetitions are performed at a start of each segment.